approached him with a proposition to do away with Bryce Cardigan. I
think, therefore, that you will readily see how impossible a
situation you have managed to create and will not disagree with me
when I suggest that it would be better for you to leave this county."

His face had gone gray and haggard. "I can't," he murmured, "I can't
leave this great business now. Your own interests in the company
render such a course unthinkable. Without my hand at the helms,
things will go to smash."

"I'll risk that. I want to get rid of that worthless red-cedar
timber; so I think you had better buy it back from me at the same
figure at which, you sold it to me."

"But I haven't the money and I can't borrow it. I--I---"

"I will have the equivalent in stock of the Laguna Grande Lumber
Company. You will call on Judge Moore to complete the transaction and
leave with him your resignation as president of the Laguna Grande
Lumber Company."

The Colonel raised his glance and bent it upon her in cold appraisal.
She met it with firmness, and the thought came to him: "She is a
Pennington!" And hope died out in his heart. He began pleading in
maudlin fashion for mercy, for compromise. But the girl was obdurate.

"I am showing you more mercy than you deserve--you to whom mercy was
ever a sign of weakness, of vacillation. There is a gulf between us,
Uncle Seth--a gulf which for a long time I have dimly sensed and
which, because of my recent discoveries, has widened until it can no